


time flies by

by Laroyena



Category: DCU (Comics), Smallville, Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Basically, Complicated Relationships, Dimension Travel, Doppelganger, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Reunions, Soul Bond, Temporary Character Death, Tim waited through so much just for Kon to come back, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8522914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laroyena/pseuds/Laroyena
Summary: Jon Kent is Superboy. Tim's gut instinct tells him that's wrong.(Timkon fix-it where reboot!Tim misses Kon like a phantom limb. And then he gets him back.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Got the new Superman #10 issue and looove the cuties Jon and Damian. But it reminded me of Kon-El (original Superboy) and in light of the crazy that's taken over my country, I thought someone deserved a happy ending. And that someone is Tim :P 
> 
> Sorry, DCU timeline shenanigans confuse the hell out of me;;; So this is a gratuitous mixing of ALL kinds of universes... mostly based on the comic verse, though characters have been revived/killed/taken from other places and please take this as a frankestein work and not a comprehensive guide to DC's confusing multiverse issues aah.
> 
> Clark and Lex relationship is taken directly from Smallville (hints of a previous relationship); Conner and Lex's relationship is taken from some of my previous fic with those two (basically they get along/Lex is a decent father) as opposed to their "I don't wanna be Lex!" attitude from the comics. Even I don't know how the Superboy Prime part of this story fits in. I JUST WANTED THIS TO WORK OUT SORRY UGGHH

Tim felt…empty.

There was a perpetual, gnawing sense that something important was missing, and it was driving him crazy. It crept up on him just before bed, in the early rays of the morning, in the dull moments of self-reflection after a mission had been completed at a cost.

“It’s like I’m missing someone,” Tim tried describing the feeling to Dick, who cocked his head. “And not in a romantic ‘Oh I need a girlfriend’ now kind of feeling. It’s like an aching tooth.”

“Huh,” Dick propped his head on his hands. The man was still dressed in his Nightwing outfit, though he’d taken the domino mask off in the safety of the Bat Cave. “Maybe you should get Leslie to check it out?”

He was joking, of course, because one thing had Bruce drilled into his head was how important it was to trust his instincts. And his instincts told him that something was very, _very_ wrong.

\--

The first clue came when Superman and his son introduced themselves. After their Superman had died. Because this Superman was from a different universe.

“When Flash went back in time and reset the timeline, he basically wrote _our_ timeline out of existence,” Superman tried explaining to an increasingly dour-looking Batman. “Some of us weren’t entirely erased, however, and long story short my family and I migrated to this timeline. We’ve been… kind of living away from all of this. Didn’t want to disrupt anything more than we already do, you know? But then when I saw this timeline's version of me die…”

“The Justice League needs a Superman,” Batman nodded. He stood up. “Very well. But you are not _our_ Superman, and we will need to assess you.”

“Dad wouldn’t do anything!” the boy by Superman’s side said.

“No, Jon,” Superman put a hand on his shoulder. “This is fine. Run all the tests you want, Bruce,” and Batman didn’t even twitch at the use of his real name. “But you can trust me. I might not be from this timeline, but there are fewer differences between this timeline and older one than you think.”

\--

Jon Kent was rambunctious and emotive and drove Damian up the wall, which were all pluses in Tim’s book. He came downstairs to find the Bat Cave in pandemonium: sheets of ice crawling towards the ceiling and entire swathes of machinery on fire and two boys duking it out right in the midst of it all.

“He started it!” Damian shouted when Bruce and Clark came back and glared them into submission. Tim ached for some popcorn. “How can you trust him?”

“He’s just a boy, Damian, the same age as you when—”

“I was never a child, Father. _Superboy,_ on the other hand—”

Something in Tim’s chest seized. The rest of Damian’s tirade faded into the background, and all he could hear was that one word resonating in his mind: Superboy. _Superboy_.

He clutched his chest and took a shuddering breath. The emptiness was overwhelming. Superman must have noticed the uptick in his heartbeat, because suddenly the Man of Steel was right there with his hand on his shoulder.

“Tim? Are you alright?” alternate Clark asked.

“Fine,” Tim managed, straightening at once.

“Tim,” Bruce said.

“I’m _fine_.”

Clark frowned at him for a long, considering moment before standing up.

“Superman,” Bruce said, turning back to the matter at hand. “We’ll need to discuss the best way to… discipline our sons.”

“Father!” Damian wailed at the same time as Jon said “Dad!” and no one was paying attention to Tim anymore.

\--

 _Superboy_ , Tim wrote on his tablet and frowned at the name. Superboy was Jon Kent’s hero name, but Jon Kent wasn’t the one he was missing.

 _His_ Superboy was someone else entirely.

\--

In the end, Tim had only two options: to go to Barry, whose memory of the original timeline was hazy at best; or Clark, who would probably know more about a 'Superboy' but was less trustworthy. Or predictable.

“Barry,” Tim wandered into Central City one day under the pretext of checking up on Wayne Enterprise’s holdings. Barry, gracious man he was, agreed to coffee at Jitters without much of a fight. The speedster was still in his CSI outfit and was looking over some case files when Tim showed up. “Can you… tell me what I was like in the previous timeline?”

Barry flipped the folder closed and furrowed his brow. “Tim, you know I can’t.”

“Because we can't disrupt the timestream,” Tim said. He’d done his research. “But I need to know. I…” he looked the Flash in the eye. “I’m missing something. Someone. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t over thinking things.”

Barry’s gaze softened. He ran a hand through his blond hair with a sigh. “No, you’re not over thinking it.” He finished the rest of his coffee and stood up. “Most people don’t retain anything from the previous timeline, but there are a few that do. They’re missing people or things from the old timeline, and either they find who they’re looking for… or they don’t.”

Tim didn’t blink. “And me?”

“I’m so sorry, Tim,” Barry said gently. He shook his head and walked away, and Tim resisted the urge to throw the coffee cup against the wall.

So he was left with only alternate Clark, which was always a risk. Superman was far less amicable and understanding than the Flash, after all, especially when his family was involved.

Except he didn’t have time to ask Clark anything.

Long story short, Tim was on another mission for the Teen Titans when things went to hell. As usual. They strapped him into a mind machine that would let Lex Fucking Luthor paw through his thoughts for all of Batman’s secrets. As usual. Of course the Bat taught all Robins how to create mazes out of their mind palaces, so good luck there.

After two hours, Luthor drew back and frowned down at him.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to see how those mind tricks handled magical interference,” Luthor said. He pulled out a strange wand-like device and pressed it to Tim’s temple. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

Tim arched as the first wave of pain hit. He almost dropped the razor he’d been carefully working the cuffs around his hand with. Another wave of pain; another wave of quick, nonsensical images; and Tim could feel Luthor getting close.

He drew up his mind’s strongest walls and quickly constructed at least three decoys to distract Luthor, give him the time to hide Bruce’s secrets deep inside. Except the magic wand razed his mindscape like a fire to a field, and Luthor was going to—

He can’t—

Something seemed to turn sideways, and then suddenly both him and Luthor were inside a memory Tim didn't recognize. Dream-him stood stoically on the edge of some Metropolis skyscraper, staring ahead at LexCorp. Even that building looked different than the real thing.

“Tim!” a cheerful voice called, and Dream-him turn around. Tim's heart squeezed when he saw the grinning brunette flying down and landing before him. He was tall and broad and about Tim’s own age, with light blue eyes and a cheeky air about him. His shirt, damningly, had the Superman logo emblazoned onto its front.

“No names on the field,” Dream-Tim said.

“What, who’s going to hear me from here?”

“Luthor.”

“You think he doesn’t already know who you are?” Mystery Boy rolled his eyes and hauled Dream-Tim into his arms. Dream-Tim actually smiled— _smiled!_ —and wrapped his arms around Mystery Boy’s neck. “’Sides, he’s not gonna try anything with Superboy on the look out!”

“Kon!” Dream-Tim scolded—and the memory dissolved like paper thrown in water.

Tim gasped awake, panting, still trying to figure out what he’d just seen. And then he caught sight of Luthor’s face. The man looked pale and unsettled, neither of which were typical arrogant Luthor expressions.

“Conner,” he whispered quietly. And then before Tim could ask who that was—Kon was clearly short for Conner; Conner was Superboy; was he _Tim’s_ Superboy?—Luthor backed away and strode out of the room.

Bruce cut him out of the contraption ten minutes later.

“You’ll need to get your wounds checked out,” he said, and Tim was uncharacteristically silent in response.

He was silent when he let Alfred stitch up the bleeding wound on his forearm. He was silent as he hauled himself upstairs and slipped into bed.

The next day, he drove down to visit the Kents.

\--

“Tell me Damian’s not with you,” Jon whined when he opened the door.

“Damian’s not with me,” Tim said. He tucked his motorcycle helmet under his arm and squinted inside. “Is your father home?”

Clark was out back weeding the garden in his civvies. It always tickled Tim to see the lauded Man of Steel himself doing mundane things like this. It almost made him feel guilty for what he was going to spring on him next.

“Tim,” Clark finally acknowledged him. He took off his hat. “Wasn’t expecting you. Does… does Bruce need anything?”

Tim stared at this older version of Clark he and the rest of the superheroes had gotten to know these last few months. He was a good man, clearly, and a good father.

“Who is Conner,” Tim said—and wasn’t sure if he felt gratified or scared when Clark actually paled. Gotcha.

He took so long to respond that Jon left and came back with two glasses of lemonade.

“Dad! Why are you just standing there,” Jon complained, and Clark broke out of his daze long enough to accept the cup and take a huge gulp. “Is Tim gonna stay and help weed?”

“No,” Clark said. “No, we’re… going to talk. How about you go inside and work on that model truck.”

“But…”

“ _Jon_ ,” Clark said, and the boy pouted and sulked back indoors.

Clark rubbed a hand down his face and then led them to a table beside the porch.

“Tim, how do you know that name?” Clark started.

“Luthor’s mind-reading tech mixed with magic,” Tim said. “Ended up giving me a vision of—of another world. The old world, I think.”

“My timeline,” Clark said.

Tim slowly nodded.

The Man of Steel closed his eyes and drummed the table with his fingers.

“Conner Kent,” he finally said, and then looked away. It was interesting to see the complex emotions playing across his face. Guilt and sadness and hesitance, and Tim was well aware that alternate Clark Kent rarely talked about the old timeline for a reason. Messing up the natural order and all that. Finally, Clark seemed to draw himself up with a determined breath. “Conner was my son, Tim. My. My eldest son.”

Tim opened his mouth. Clark had another son with Lois? Before Jon? Except there was no indication that Lois had ever lost a child, and the way she and Jon interacted had always suggested he was her one and only. Clark, on the other hand, had enough dark moments that Bruce had grilled him extensively before giving him the all-clear.

Just to be sure, he ventured: “With Lois?”

“Oh, no,” Clark shook his head. “The circumstances of his… creation are complicated at best, unethical at the worst. But he was my son for all intents and purposes, and he was a valued member of the Teen Titans.” His blue eyes were somber as he observed Tim. “In the older timeline, you two were best friends. Partners. But when he died, it changed you... it hardened you. I didn't want to put that burden back on your shoulders. Not when this timeline freed you from it.”

“Except I keep missing someone I don’t _know_ ,” Tim said, voice steely. There was so much awful bullshit packed in that one line of dialogue he had to give himself more time to sift through it. “I just want it to stop.”

“He doesn’t exist in this universe,” Clark said bluntly. “I checked. The Lex of this timeline never got that far with Cadmus. Kon-El never existed.”

Lex. Lex Luthor. Luthor’s pale face, the quiet _Conner_ he had muttered.

“You and _Lex Luthor_ ,” was the first thing that dropped out of his mouth, and Clark gave him a considering look.

“You never looked us up before, have you?” and the Man of Steel looked far too amused given the bombshells he was dropping onto Tim’s head. “We were good friends, once. Good friends but bitter enemies. And Conner suffered the worst of our parenting because of it.”

Tim didn’t say anything when Clark closed his eyes and took a breath.

“And now he’s gone,” Tim said, feeling numb, and Clark just nodded.

\--

It was a bizarre conundrum, being erased from time. Superman and his family’s sheer existence meant people and places weren’t completely wiped out; that something about them floated about somewhere.

Perhaps that was why Tim kept feeling Conner’s absence like a sore tooth. He was still out there.

But he wasn’t.

He ended up hacking into Luthor’s files with nothing but the name _Cadmus_ from his talk with Clark. It took days of trying to outsmart Luthor’s failsafes and encrypted data files, but he finally managed to piece together the fragments he’d been able to collect. Cloning, forced aging, mimicking super-powers. The goal was to clone Superman, and after initial failure the scientists decided to mix the Kryptonian DNA with another.

Lex’s cells were abnormal for a human. Tim had his suspicions, but something about his cells bonded particularly well with Clark’s. Even Lois only conceived when Superman had been stripped of his powers. She wouldn’t have been able to withstand the strain of a full Kryptonian pregnancy otherwise.

Tim found a small hidden file that had him pause.

Then, he closed his laptop and packed his bags for a drive back up to Metropolis.

\--

“I have to applaud your gall in just walking into my tower like this,” Luthor drawled from his desk. “Though any admiration is tempered by your stupidity. How may I help you, Mister Drake?”

“I want your files on Conner,” Tim said.

Luthor paused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Conner,” Tim said. “Kon-El, Project Cadmus’s brainchild…”

Luthor sat up and hit a switch. Tim kept himself from flinching when protective shielding descended over the windows and Mercy stepped through the door. He hadn’t been completely reckless. Dick knew where he was, though not exactly what for. If he didn’t check in after a certain time, he’d bring down the might of Gotham’s vigilantes on LexCorp.

“Project Cadmus was a failure,” Luthor said shortly. “Production shut down after only six months. You’re free to peruse the files, but there is nothing of value to be found there.”

“We both saw him,” Tim said. Luthor twitched, a surprisingly honest reaction from the cool executive. “And… and I know he existed in the older timeline. I want to find him, Luthor.”

“Watch your tone,” Luthor snapped. Mercy stepped forward, but the executive waved a hand. “As I said, the project was a failure. This ‘Conner’ you speak of does not exist.”

Tim mused over this while ignoring Mercy’s subtle activation of several weapons hidden in the walls. Ready to fire, of course, because when was Luthor ever not prepared?

Considering all the data he'd gathered from himself and Clark and Luthor's files, Tim could only come to one conclusion.

“Then show me where he’s buried,” he said, and caught the flicker of surprise crossing Luthor’s face.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll tell Superman about all of this,” Tim said, “and then _he’ll_ find out where he’s buried. I doubt you’d want that, Luthor.”

Luthor narrowed his eyes and made a gesture at Mercy. His bodyguard reached into her breast pocket and retrieved a key.

“One hour,” he told her before turning back to him. “You will speak to no one of this, or I will find ways to make your life a hell even Bruce can’t account for. This is not a favor. This is not a concession of blackmail. This,” he picked up the key, “is for Conner. And only him.”

Tim nodded, and followed Luthor out the door.

\--

For some reason, Tim had been expecting Luthor to lead him to some shady, underground morgue with the frozen remains of Cadmus’s failure labeled and tucked inside an impersonal silver cabinet.

Instead, Luthor drove him to a quaint countryside. To a graveyard.

Tim half expected Luthor to shoot him dead and bury his corpse right there, but everyone knew Luthor had _style_. And he wouldn’t be so gauche to dirty his hands on this kind of grunt work.

Tim followed Luthor as they walked through rows of tombstones, and the crawling feeling under his skin intensified the deeper they walked. The ache was near unbearable, and Tim was ready to just throw caution to the wind and run ahead when Luthor finally stopped.

It seemed randomly placed and completely boring, but there the tombstone was.

 _Conner Kent Luthor_.

No dates. No words. Just a small Superman symbol etched on the foundation, and that was it.

Tim let out a wet breath. He didn’t—he wasn’t—

He had no idea who this person, thing, clone was, but something inside of him crumpled. Conner hadn't gotten a tombstone in the original timeline, because Tim had been _so sure_ he wasn't dead— that he'd come back—

He let out another sob.

It would have been absolutely mortifying to have a supervillain like Luthor watching him cry, except Luthor’s eyes were looking a bit wet too.

“You wanted to find him,” Luthor said. Nothing in his voice betrayed his expression. “Here he is.”

Luthor looked at Mercy and nodded, and the two of them began making their way back the way they came. Tim didn’t move at all.

“I’m sure you can find your own way home, Mister Drake,” Luthor called out once they were a good two or three rows away. “And remember your end of the bargain, child. You, of all people, know how foolish it is to mess with _me_.”

\--

Tim made sure to walk half an hour out into bumfuck nowhere before calling Dick to pick him up. He didn’t say anything when his adoptive brother began grilling him for details—how did he go from Metropolis to this weird country town, where was Luthor, what did he do to you, Timmy?—and he didn’t say anything when Bruce gave him The Look at home. Not even Damian’s pointed barbs about shirking duties and running away with his tail between his legs registered.

Tim didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say, really, and it wasn’t like it mattered.

The ache was still there, but it was subdued now that it knew the one it ached for wasn’t there anymore. He was _gone_.

Not erased from existence, but gone.

\--

The file Tim had found had been a video of a simple bedroom. Luthor was writing in a notebook in a chair. There was a boy in the bed. Twelve, thirteen-ish. He stirred awake and Luthor sat up. There wasn’t any audio, but there was no mistaking the fond look on the normally cool villain’s face. He seemed to soothe the boy with some snarky quips, and the boy smiled brilliantly at him.

Tim recognized that smile. Just one hazy hallucination, and he could’ve recognized that smile for the rest of his life.

Conner’s DNA had started showing signs of instability and corrosion once he’d been aged to near puberty. Rather than terminate the failed clone and autopsy its body to ensure their next test wouldn’t fail—rather than act like himself, Luthor had removed Conner from the chamber and let him live for as long as he had.

One year, Tim’s best deductions said. One year where Luthor was a bit more reserved than usual, stayed a bit closer to home and actually behaved himself. They’d all attributed the change to a failed kidnapping some months prior, where Luthor had been strung up for two weeks until Superman— _their_ Superman—had rescued him. Licking his wounds, they’d said.

Spending time with Conner, Tim revised. It was clear from the notes that Conner had been nothing more than a weapon at his inception. But at some point, perhaps when Luthor visited the lab in person and saw the boy for himself, the executive had clearly changed his mind. He cared for the boy, enough that he chose to write Project Cadmus off as a failure rather than see this teenager dissected and autopsied.

Enough that he buried Conner in a real plot with a real tombstone, and it was disconcerting to realize that Luthor was human.

 _We were good friends once_ , alternate Clark had said.

Tim curled up in a ball under his covers. He pressed a fist to his chest.

Good friends like him and Conner, apparently. And like before, he couldn’t help the fresh wave of tears filling his eyes. It was horrible. Even more horrible than when Bruce had died. Than when his father had died.

He wished fate had given him a clean slate like everybody else, because there wasn’t anything worse than this.

\--

“Timmy,” Dick approached him after he found Tim resolutely stitching up his own wounds in the Bat Cave. Nightwing took the sewing kit from his hand and took over the stitching, ignoring Tim’s _I’m-not-a-kid_ glower. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Tim said.

“You’ve been kind of reserved lately.”

“Sure,” Tim said.

Dick sighed and finished up the stitches. He wrapped gauze over the wound and patted Tim’s shoulder. “You know you can talk to me if something’s wrong. I know B’s not the most… _affectionate_ person in the world, and neither is Jay… or Damian…”

“I’m fine,” Tim forced a smile that Dick clearly wasn’t buying. He changed tactics and held out his hands, and Dick drew him into a careful hug. “Thanks for asking. Just… you know. Teen stuff.”

“Okay,” Dick said, and was gracious enough to leave it at that.

Over the next year, Tim dedicated himself to the work. Everything from fighting aliens to dying and coming back to life to thwarting unethical science experiments. You know, the usual. If Dick or Jason nudged him once in a while and directed his attention to potential "friends," Tim just stared at them until they backed off.

Tim worked best alone. Everyone knew that.

\--

The dimensions were coming apart at the seams. Again.

Seriously, Tim knew Bruce had at least five fail-safe plans to lock all speedsters away forever, for the sake of the world; the multiverse; and more than likely their sanity.

“So what you’re telling me,” he shouted over the ferocious winds whirling about them, “is that _our_ speedsters ran into the Speed Force and they’re… what? Duking it out with the god of the multiverse?”

“They’re trying to close the cracks,” Superman corrected him. He laser-beamed a few more growly demon things and flew over to where Tim and Damian were kicking the creatures off the cliff. “Cracks left behind from when Flash changed the timeline the first time. I didn’t realize… my family and I, we were able to arrive here by slipping through one of those cracks.”

“And even more alternate people will slip in now that the cracks have widened,” a Clark-like voice said, and Tim barely had time to yank Damian out the way before something crashed into the Man of Steel.

“Evil Superman!” Damian yelled, which was a pretty apt description. The two Supermen were duking it out, the evil one dressed in darker colors and clearly not from this dimension. Or timeline. Tim looked over and saw another Batman fighting alongside _their_ Batman, and decided he didn’t want to know.

Until something followed Evil Superman through the quickly vanishing crack and dragged the Kryptonian off of Clark.

“Chase you through the multiverse and we still end up in the same place!” the newcomer roared. He threw evil Superman into a quickly rising plateau from below. “What the hell do I need to do to just _keep you down,_ Prime?”

“ _Kon?”_ Clark gasped, and Tim froze. The other teenager quickly turned around and looked at Superman with large blue eyes. That shirt. That face.

“Clark?” the boy said—and then evil Superman got right back up and punched him through the wall.

“More Supers,” Damian said with disgust, drawing out his katana. Tim forced himself to look away from Kon’s… from Conner’s face and readied his bo-staff. Freak-outs later. Fight to the death now.

They needed to ward off as many demon things as possible until the Flash family returned, and if that meant dealing with their doppelgangers, well. So be it.

\--

Most of their alternate reality allies faded back into the cracks once they closed, but not all. Kon-El, for instance, came across an invisible barrier when he tried to step back into the crack.

“Why can’t I go back?” the boy said, frustrated, and turned to the Flash. “I mean cool, I’m glad I saved your universe but I need to get back to mine.”

“I can’t go back either,” the large bulky redhead that had jumped through last minute to toss some demon things off of Batman said. “Though… from what I remember… I’m not sure if there’s anything to go back to at all.”

“There isn’t,” Flash said. He took a deep breath and turned to Kon. “This _is_ your universe. But the timeline you came from… well. It was rewritten. By me. Which means your timeline doesn’t exist anymore.”

Kon stared at him.

“No,” he finally said. “I don’t believe you.”

“Kon—”

“So you’re telling me that _this_ is my home? Clark’s like, what, a decade older than he’s supposed to be, and you guys are like a decade _younger_ than you’re supposed to be, and—” his face paled. “What about Young Justice? Bart, _Tim_ …”

“I’m from your timeline too, Kon. The fight with Superboy-Prime must have pulled you out of the timeline before it was reset,” Clark put a firm hand on the teenager’s shoulder. “When Prime entered our dimension, the two of you went to blows, and then…”

“…and then a crack appeared and I dragged him in with me,” Kon finished. “So what, you’re telling me that by the time we popped back out Flash had _rewritten the timeline?_ ”

“Kon,” Clark started, but the boy was clearly more upset than he let on.

“I—” he rose into the air, looking unsteady. “I have to process this.”

And then he was off, and Tim.

The ache in Tim’s gut forced him to follow.

\--

In an eerie imitation of the memory that had justified this entire business, Tim found this… Kon-El, Conner Kent Luthor, whatever he went by, standing on the rooftop of an office building across from Lexcorp.

He was staring at the building like he could look through its walls. Then again, he was part Kryptonian. Maybe he could.

Tim was fifteen feet away when Kon-El stiffened and turned to look at him.

Tim froze. Kon looked at him with a combination of emotion: in part relieved, in part in grief, and most of all hopeful. Like Tim was exactly who he wanted to see, even if he wasn’t the right Tim.

No, that wasn’t right.

For once in his life, the ache was… quiet. Gone. Tim’s heart sped up as reality began sinking in. _Conner was here_.

“Tim,” Kon started, turning around completely—and Tim leapt into his arms. Kon fell backwards off the roof but easily flew them up as Tim clung hard to him like a limpet.

“Kon,” he gasped and pressed his face into his neck. Conner was here. He was alive, he'd found him, _he was here._ Conner squeezed him tightly in his arms, and they just shook in the air like that. Holding each other and crying, and Tim was going to be so embarrassed about this later. So mortified that he hadn’t approached this stranger with more suspicion, even if his gut told him that this was right. This was _his_ Superboy.

He’d come home.

\--

The redhead in the trenchcoat turned out to be just a boy once he shrunk down: Colin Wilkes, Gotham orphan and an ally of the Bat family back in his—in the original timeline.

“I found your info,” Damian declared, squinting at the computer in the Bat Cave. Colin had been subdued and scared when they explained to him that his timeline was gone, and that they’d have to find a way to integrate him in this one. He’d quickly attached himself to Damian no matter how much Robin hissed and growled at him.

Apparently they’d been pretty good friends in the original timeline, even if Damian didn’t remember a thing.

“Colin Wilkes,” Damian read off of the file. Colin perched beside him and didn’t react when Damian shoved his feet off the console. “Orphan left at St. Aden’s Orphanage. Kidnapped by.” He stopped abruptly. Then, he continued in a quieter voice, “Kidnapped by the Scarecrow… in an experiment with Bane’s venom. Died of its effects before rescue.” Damian stared at the screen for a long, weighty moment, and then shut it off. “You died in this timeline.”

“Huh,” Colin said. He raised his hand and let a Venom-filled vein pulse through his skin. "Didn't die in mine."

“I have a theory. When the timeline reset, it took everyone in the universe at that exact moment and rewrote them,” Tim said. He didn’t look up from where he was putting together some wires for an experimental gadget. “Anyone who wasn’t in the universe at that moment weren’t there to be written, and so the universe just… filled the holes. It couldn’t bring those people back, but it could create the memory of them. It could replace the holes with their death.”

“So what?” Damian turned around. “Just ‘cause this kid was somehow outside the timestream, the timeline wrote him out of the reset by killing him off? How does that make sense?”

“Maybe the universe knew I’d come back,” Colin suggested. “And it’d be weird if there were two of me, right?”

“There were two Supermans.”

“But one Superman _was_ rewritten; the other just arrived through a mix of timestream shenanigans.”

“This is hurting my brain,” the redhead complained, and Damian surprised Tim when he reached over and gave the boy a glass of water. Colin beamed at him gratefully and took a big gulp. “Just… what do I do now? If I’m dead, the orphanage isn’t going to take me back…”

“Obviously, you’ll stay with us,” Damian declared.

Tim didn’t have the energy to remind Damian that Bruce made the final decisions here, not him.

That didn't matter. Not when Kon’s own arrival back to their universe raised similar questions of where he belonged… and how the two of them were going to move forward.

\--

“Why,” Tim hissed when Kon dragged him across the Daily Planet towards LexCorp. “This is stupid; for all you know, this Luthor and _your_ Luthor can be completely different. The timeline rewrote things, remember?”

“You’re the one that said he let me die in this universe,” Kon said. “I want to see him.”

“He let you die out of love for you!”

“I know,” Kon threw him a puzzled look. “that's why I want to see him.”

The secretary up front looked suspiciously at the two teenagers striding up to the counter.

“I’m here to see Lex,” Kon said without preamble. The secretary narrowed her eyes at him for the gall. “You can call him and ask. Tell him it’s Conner. Conner Kent. No, wait, call Mercy first. She’ll patch you through.”

It took only five minutes for Kon and Tim to go from pacing about the lobby to riding up the elevator to Luthor’s main office.

“You could’ve dropped my name instead,” Tim said.

“You kidding? Lex would kill me if he didn’t have a few minutes to compose himself. Better to let him stew about my arrival before I show my face, not after,” Kon grinned at him, and Tim flushed.

It was weird. It was exhilarating. He still didn’t know much apart from the fact that Superboy felt right by his side. He didn’t know his past, his hobbies, his favorite color—but he did. Certain gestures gave Tim the worst case of déjà vu, and from Kon’s grateful smiles Tim knew he remembered more than he thought. It couldn’t be coincidence that the coffee, meal, reading material _and_ drink he’d chosen for their leisurely train ride to Smallville had all been Kon’s favorites. The odds of that were staggering.

Luthor wasn’t sitting at his desk when they arrived. He was standing— _pacing_ —and stopped when he saw Kon walk through the door.

“Conner,” he said, voice clipped. He wasn’t glowering, however, and he was surprisingly soft around the edges.

“Hey Lex,” Kon said—and Tim couldn’t help by drop his jaw when Luthor crossed the room and drew the boy into a hug. A hug.

Tim’s brain was going to short out.

“So,” Kon managed after a heavy moment just feeling Luthor’s arms around him. From what Tim had gathered in their awkward, tell-me-what-you-know conversations, Luthor had been Kon’s main parental figure before he’d decided to go vigilante. “You’re not as surprised as I thought you’d be.”

“Even us non-metas have things called broadcast news and the internet,” Lex said dryly, stepping back. “That, and Clark called a few hours after the whole fiasco.”

“ _Clark_ called?”

“Yes, it surprised me too,” Luthor’s mouth quirked into a wry smile. “I half expected him to try and squirrel you away to his hideout in the countryside; give Jonathan the older brother he always wanted.”

“Like he’d be able to keep me locked up,” Kon rolled his eyes. After another awkward moment, he said, “Tim told me what happened to this timeline’s Clark and Kon.”

Luthor sighed and stepped back entirely. He went to his desk while Tim sidled up to Kon.

Kon said, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re both here now.”

“Yeah, but we’re not _your_ Clark and Kon,” Kon said. “We might be the originals, but that doesn’t make our reset versions any less real. So I’m sorry we left you alone.”

Luthor didn’t respond. He just sat in his chair and turned that razor-sharp attention to Tim, who’d wisely been keeping his mouth shut.

“Yes, well,” he finally said, changing topic in a startlingly bad way. He was more shaken than Tim had thought. “Aside from tearful reunions, I assume you’re here to work out your new identity? With the help of Mister Drake, I see.”

“Lex,” Kon warned.

“He’s unreliable and suspicious. Trained by Bruce Wayne, for god's sake, and one thing I learned at school was how Bruce loved tugging the rug out from under you. And this is a family matter.”

“Tim stays, Lex,” Kon said. Luthor glared. Kon set his jaw. Tim pretended to be a marble Bruce-like statue, because when it came to Fight or Flight he usually chose Freeze.

And then Kon reached over and put his hand on Tim’s. It was warm and big and so relieving Tim couldn’t help but soften just a bit, even if Luthor’s gaze had taken on an incredulous edge.

“So this is why you were looking for Conner,” he told Tim. Kon swiveled and gave Tim a questioning stare that he pretended not to see. “It does… surprise me.”

“I don’t see why. I get it from both sides,” Kon said—and Luthor let out a surprised bark of laughter.

“Yes,” he said, pulling up a few holographic screens from his desk. “Yes, you do.”

\--

Tim wasn’t naïve, and he wasn’t innocent. He observed and tested Kon as much as he actually enjoyed his company, and it took at least three months for him to put the worst of his suspicions to rest. It also took him three months to actually learn Kon: how truly infuriating and annoying the boy could be; how his antics caused Tim to ponder over murdering him and framing Luthor for the deed; how handsome and compassionate he was in the face of everything.

It took him three months to put a word to that content hum in his chest where the ache used to be.

“Kon,” he called out when he found the boy sitting outside Clark’s porch drinking a cup of lemonade. Kon visited often but never stayed, preferring his apartment in Metropolis over all else. Not because he hated the countryside, as Tim had first expected, but because seeing Clark’s perfect home life pained him. Clark used to be _his_ dad, after all. Now that Superman had Lois and Jon, Kon was understandably a bit distant.

“Tim, I didn’t know you were coming over,” Kon grinned at him as he walked up the steps. “What are you—”

Instead of sitting down in the chair across from him, Tim kept walking and leaned down to kiss him. It wasn’t chaste and it wasn’t shy, and the other teenager immediately grabbed him around the waist and pulled him into his lap.

“Fuck, Tim,” Kon breathed when they parted, blue eyes wide with relief, “Oh god, I thought you wouldn’t—there are so many changes, I wasn’t sure—”

“That I still love you?” Tim let a small grin spread across his lips. He kissed Kon again and sighed at how right it felt. It wasn’t perfect, not yet, but Tim was confident they’ll get there. “Took me a bit to figure it out, but I always will. Across dimensions—”

“—and time shenanigans,” Kon went in for another kiss and whined when Tim turned away with a small chuckle. “ _Tim._ ”

“—and years wondering if I’ll find you,” Tim whispered. Kon coaxed him into another kiss, dirty enough that any doubt of their previous relationship was put to rest. He knew all of Tim’s best spots, for God’s sake, and proved it by reaching under his shirt and rubbing circles in the curve of his hip. The unfairness of it all was as frustrating as it was exciting. Tim loved learning.

“Conner, you— _augh_!” Tim drew back in time to see Jon covering his eyes and walking backwards into the house. “Ew! You're outside, get a _room_!”

“You’re what, ten? Eleven?” Kon drawled unrepentantly. He didn't draw his hand back. “It’s a natural expression of love, kiddo!”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna _see it_!” the younger Kent whined, and Tim hid his smile in Kon’s shoulder.

“How about we split,” the half-Kryptonian whispered conspiratorially, scooping him up in his arms without waiting for confirmation and flying off the porch.

“Gotham,” Tim said.

Kon shook his head. “Metropolis.”

“The Watchtower.”

“LexCorp?” Tim smacked him, and Kon laughed. “Okay, okay, the Watchtower it is. Hold on tight, it’s gonna take some super-speed to get to the Hall of Justice.”

Tim looped his arms around Kon’s neck and rested his head against his chest. The steady beat of his heart soothed him, and he closed his eyes as they soared in the sky.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If I'm bringing back Kon, then I'm definitely bringing back Colin too. Why was Colin in the timestream? Who knows... probably running an errand for Damian and got swept up in the Flashpoint crazy.
> 
> This fic was literally my "AMERICA IS ON FIRE I CAN'T WORK" fic lol


End file.
